When you’re the secret ingredient, you need to be involved.

CRE Success Principle: Recruitment isn’t just about filling roles—it’s about attracting the right people who align with your vision, values, and growth ambitions.

As a reformed perfectionist, I now love delegating tasks.

And I strongly encourage my clients to adopt this mindset by letting go and doing less.

However, there are some highly leveraged activities that you should keep on your plate.

I’m thinking of the areas where your direct involvement is the secret ingredient.

And, to be more specific, there are certain stages of the hiring process that you can’t afford to handball to someone else.

To find out which parts of the recruitment process you need to be involved in, join me for episode 207 of Commercial Real Estate Leadership.

And, by the way, I hope you enjoyed our recent set of episodes that were all about recruitment. Stand by for our next special series covering the topic of client acquisition!

Episode transcript:

In our previous 2 episodes of the show, we've been talking about recruitment.

And one thing I didn't tell you is that there is a secret ingredient to supercharge your recruitment efforts.

Now, you may not know it, but you already have this secret ingredient.

And the good news is that the secret ingredient, it's you.

Hello, welcome to episode 207 of Commercial Real Estate Leadership. I'm your host, Darren Krakowiak.

Thanks for joining us for another episode of the show.

If you're enjoying this special series, which is all about recruitment and you haven't downloaded our 7-step recruitment process, well, go to cresuccess.co/recruitment

And you can grab a free copy of that process that up till now we've only been sharing with our private clients.

Well, it's time to share it with more people, listeners and viewers of the Commercial Real Estate Leadership podcast.

It's available for you for free at cresuccess.co/recruitment

So, as I mentioned at the top of the show, in episodes 205 and 206, we've been talking about recruitment.

We've covered, the why and the how so far.

We've talked about why recruitment is crucial to scaling your success, and we've also laid out how you can do it effectively.

But today, we're going to focus on the who.

So, we've gone from why to how and now to who.

And the who is you.

You are the secret ingredient to making it all work.

And I want to tell you a story about a client of mine who was going through a recruitment process, and he came to me with a problem.

He said that the candidates that he had sourced weren't any good.

And I said to him, “Okay, well, let's have a look at the job ad. What did you put in the job ad?”

And he said, “Well, oh, my finance team or head of HR or whoever wrote the job ad for me.”

And I said, “Okay, we've identified where the problem might be.”

Because to avoid mismatches, to ensure that you get a better-quality candidate, one that is more likely to meet your expectations, you need to be involved in crafting the job ad, in setting out what the roles and responsibilities are in defining the position description.

You want to do that, so it is a reflection of you and also so the applicants are more likely to meet your expectations.

Now, I am all for people doing work that you don't have to do.

Delegation is great. But there are some parts that you should do yourself and hiring people is a highly leveraged exercise.

And what I mean by that is, you do it once and then, effectively in perpetuity or until you decide that they're no longer suitable to work in your business or they decide that they want to leave, they become someone who amplifies what you do.

So, investing some time at the very beginning to make sure we get it right is a really good use of your time.

As we outlined in previous episodes, and also in that 7-step recruitment process, there are some parts of this process that you can delegate to others.

For example, this phone screening process is something that you can get a member of your team to do by creating a checklist and making sure that they meet the minimum requirements of the role.

But when you're actually crafting the position description, that is something that you should be doing yourself.

So that's why you are critical in creating the position description and being involved in the early stages of the recruitment process to define the requirements, to set it up so you're more likely to get better quality candidates.

So, a couple of questions for you to consider.

Are you taking a passive approach to recruitment?

If you're not putting in the effort, if you're not getting into the driver's seat and taking control of certain elements of the process, then we can't expect that the end result is going to be as strong as would otherwise be the case.

You know, I recommend that if you don't have a position description available that you do have a look at like jobs that are advertised, but we want to make sure also that our job ads don't just sound like every other firm's, that it really is a reflection of you.

And as you look at the job ad, as you look at the position description, try and put yourself in the shoes of an applicant.

Does it look like something that is enticing, that is interesting? And does it reflect who you are and what you're looking for?

Because spending a few moments to write the job ad and to make sure you come through in that job is one part of being an authentic leader.

And authentic leadership is a driver of great culture, the culture that reflects your values.

And the culture is one thing that's going to attract and also help you retain the right people.

And as you're writing the job description, as you are crafting the job ad, we want to make sure that people understand, well, why is it that I would want to apply for this position and to work in this business?

And if you don't know the reason, well, why don't you make a list?

Have a think about what are some of the things that make working for you better than working for somebody else?

And I was again going through this exercise with a client of mine just last week and we were talking about, for example, the culture, like you and your values are reflected in the business, so that is a real differentiator.

Whether you know it or not, you probably do have some reputation in the marketplace.

So have a think about what do people say about working for you and what do you want them to say working about you.

If what you want them to say about working for you isn't what they actually would say about you, then that's on you to make some changes, so they're more likely to say the things that you would like to hear about working for you.

And, you know, coming back to this whole theme of you being the secret ingredient to supercharging your recruitment, proximity to you, particularly if you are a commercial real estate principal, if you're the owner of the business, that's a real differentiator, right?

They don't get access to that when they're in a big firm.

I worked for two of the world's largest commercial real estate firms, and I had relatively senior positions.

I can remember at one firm, I actually got really good proximity to the global CEO.

I had dinner with him probably 3 times.

The other firm maybe only had a couple of fleeting interactions with that global CEO.

So, a differentiator, if you are the business owner, is the proximity that a potential employee gets to the decision maker to the owner of the business.

So that is another reason why you are a secret ingredient.

And related to that proximity, I think, is, well, why do your current team choose to work for you?

It could be because they resonate with you, your values, and they're on board with the vision, but there could also be reasons that you're not aware of, and they could be potential magnets to pull more of those people into your team.

So, we want to get an understanding of what they are.

So, if you're not sure, you could ask some of your trusted team members.

Why is it that you decided to come and work here?

What is it that you like about working here?

And also, what is it that you think could be an attractor to entice more people to want to apply for positions and ultimately to choose to work in our business?

And I, I've got one more story about a client. And again, so much of the time that I spend with my clients is talking about recruitment and people.

And one of my clients just this week, he knows he's got to hire someone because he's currently overloaded, but something was stopping him.

So, we were unpacking, “What is it that's stopping you from actually starting this recruitment process?”

Again, it's him, it's you. You are the key to unlocking more recruitment.

And we kind of identified that one of the things was an unwillingness to delegate.

So, you know, if that's something for you, you need to get better at letting go, right?

Sometimes you have this belief that, “Well, I'm better off doing it myself, and the time it takes to train someone means I'm better off just doing it myself.”

Well, if you think it's going to take a long time to show someone what it is that you do and how you expect things to be done, then as long as you don't have crazy or unrealistic expectations, then probably the answer to that is you need to be hiring better quality people.

People who can catch what it is that you expect, people that have the relevant experience (if that's a requirement) to be able to execute to your expectations.

I think in his case, maybe he was also a little bit worried about making a mistake.

He's had a couple of people who have come and then worked for his business for a couple of years and then left.

Well, we can reduce the likelihood of making a mistake by, for example, having a process around it, so we've got more confidence to execute on those hiring decisions.

And if we are a little bit worried about people eventually moving on, well, we can try and improve retention.

We can have systems and processes to retain the know-how if people do move on.

And another thing that you can think about is, well, how long ideally would I like this person to stay?

Do you really expect them to stay forever? Or is this the type of role that someone maybe after 2 or 3 years, would then decide to move on to bigger and better things?

Sometimes that is a reality of the role.

And if you do at least expect 2 or 3 years out of someone, state that as an expectation when you're hiring people.

You can say, “My vision for this position is that someone would be staying with us for a period of at least 3 years. Is that something that you can commit to?”

Now if she can't hold them to that, but if you can get them to make a commitment, that is, “Yeah, of course I'm going to stay with you for 3 years and I'm on board,” then they're more likely to do it if you get that commitment from them.

And of course, the other thing I'd say about when people do move on, particularly if they move on to bigger and better opportunities, well, sometimes that can be for the best for them.

But also, it's not a bad thing for you, right? That becomes a story of success for you.

Because people are learning and growing and developing while they're with you, and that creates a pathway to greater success.

Now, one of the reasons why they might be moving on is because you're not letting go enough, because you're not giving them the opportunities to grow within your business.

If that's the case, well, maybe you need to make some changes, but if that's not the case, there's still a good story to tell if someone moves on to a bigger and better opportunity.

But again, I would say, you can create bigger and better opportunities for people.

So, if your vision is big and your aspirations are big, then people are more likely to see their own aspirations to be catered for within your business.

So, let's sort of bring this all together.

As a reminder, recruitment is the strategy to scale your success.

You do need a proven process to avoid the churn and burn.

We talked about ‘hire slow, fire fast’.

And I believe that ‘hire fast, fire appropriately’ is a better approach.

Because if you become known as someone who can't make decisions, and then, second guesses your decisions by letting go of people very quickly, I'm not sure if that's going to send the best message to your team, and also to potential recruits.

Yes, of course, we want to move people on if they're not the right fit, but also, I think we've got to have a better recruitment process, so we're less likely to, one, be slow with the recruitment decisions we make, and two, have to then start again because we didn't get it right in the first place.

And today we've been talking about the fact that it's you, you are the difference.

And there's so many things that you can do to strengthen your hand, to ensure that you can have a more successful recruitment process and pipeline to grow your business.

Now as a reminder, you can grab our 7-step recruitment process to upgrade your hiring process at cresuccess.co/recruitment

I hope you've enjoyed this series of episodes about recruitment.

I've been thinking I want to do some more series of episodes because, you know, what I'm here to do is to help you get the right people on your team serving ideal clients inside a business that works.

So, stand by for more episodes, series of episodes that reflect that promise.

For now, thank you so much for listening, and I will speak to you soon.